


Lego Land

by DawnsEternalLight



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics)
Genre: Bonding, Damian Wayne is Robin, Damian tries, Dick Grayson is Batman, Gen, Legos, Sibling Bonding, building, can you beat legos?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 01:02:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16186832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawnsEternalLight/pseuds/DawnsEternalLight
Summary: Dick has a lot on his shoulders stepping into Bruce's shoes: taking over WE, Batman, and raising Damian. What better way to get the focus he needs, and teach Damian how to play than to set him to working with legos?





	Lego Land

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Dark Knight Strikes Back](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16172390) by [audreycritter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreycritter/pseuds/audreycritter). 



“Grayson, I have a question about our batarangs. Could they not be made more efficient if we were to use a different form of metal?” Damian’s voice preceded his person as he entered the room of the penthouse Dick had designated office and do not disturb unless the tower was about to fall down.

Not that Damian followed that request. Ever. The kid never even bothered knocking. Not anymore at least, it was something Dick was both happy with and frustrated about. Formal and sullen to brash and still sometimes sullen was not always a good transition.

“Damian.” Dick said, trying to keep the impatience and exhaustion from his voice, “Bruce tried a hundred different metals for the batarangs when he was getting started. I’m pretty sure what we have is the best.”

“Tt.” the door closed as Damian left.

Dick sighed and looked back down at the stack of papers on his desk. He was trying to read a proposal towards developing a new, more eco friendly form of jet fuel. He was interested in it, and all for finding a better way to fly anything, but it had been written with so much jargon and flair Dick was finding it hard to parse even in small bits, and he’d helped Bruce design fuel for the batplane.

He made it half a paragraph before, “Grayson, Pennyworth has ejected me from the bunker, is there anything I may assist you with?”

Dick took a breath and looked up at his little brother. At least he was asking to help and not running off on some self imposed mission. Dick liked to think he’d gotten Damian over the habit of needing to train or do work constantly, even if the kid still seemed suspicious of ‘fun’ activities.

“Did you finish your assignments for today?” he asked.

“Of course. Do you believe Pennyworth would have let me down in the bunker if I had not?”

“He kicked you out, didn’t he?”

“Tt. They are completed.”

Dick looked him over, reading the boredom on his face, and decided he did not want to come out of his office for a coffee refill and find Damian doing chin ups on the light fixtures or googling crimes he could solve from home.

“I’ve got an idea.” he said, “Something I think will enhance your training.”  Something that was the perfect mix of fun and ‘work’. Dick slid his chair back and moved past Damian, out of the office, “Wait here, while I grab something from the bunker oh banished one.”

Damian scoffed behind him, but stayed put as Dick took the elevator all the way down to their base of operations. Alfred had given him the Look when he’d insisted on bringing his old tubs of legos from the manor, but Alfred hadn’t had dreams of building things with Damian in his mind about them either.

Dick started shifting the tubs onto a dolly and smiled down at the chipped and scratched plastic. He’d had hours of fun with them as a kid, dragging Bruce away from his own work to help him make models of spaceships and houses. They’d built towers only for Dick to become Godzilla and knock them down, and Bruce had once chased Dick through the entire manor carrying a tiny little lightsaber.

There was no plan right now to do that with Damian, but Dick was still hoping they’d get there. His brother wasn’t quite at pretend with tiny lightsabers yet, but build something with these for ‘training purposes’? That he could do, and he just might have fun doing it.

Dick hauled the buckets off the dolly one at a time and set it against the wall, before taking the lids off each in front of Damian with a, “Tadaa!”

True to form, the kid looked unimpressed. Damian crossed his arms and eyed Dick.

“What are these supposed to be? They look like children’s playthings.” Dick caught him eyeing the “Dick’s Legos DO NOT TOUCH” sticker on the side of one of them.

Dick scooped out a handful of them, clinking the plastic together in his palm, “They might look like toys, but really these Legos are a complicated group of interlocking blocks in all shapes and sizes. You are going to use them to create something.”

“What exactly am I to create?” Damian asked, still attempting to sound bored, but Dick could hear the interest there.

Dick tried not to grin at him, “Anything you want. That’s the point of this exercise. It’s designed to stretch your mind and engineering skills.”

Damian nodded, “I can see the advantage to such a thing. Alright, I will create something and return to show you when I’ve finished.”

“Great, maybe after that we’ll go out for ice cream.” Dick told him, “I know I’ll need a break pretty soon, if this proposal doesn’t kill me the grant requests coming after it will.”

He left Damian to begin sorting through the tubs of legos to head back into his office. The proposal looked more daunting than it had when he’d left, but he squared his shoulders and sat down to work on it. 

He opened the door exactly once to try to get more coffee before a small hand, then body, slammed against it and he heard Damian’s now muffled through door voice say, “You cannot look yet, it is not finished.”

Dick signed and accepted a coffeeless existence in exchange for peace. “Okay, send Alfred in if you get a chance?” he called back and wandered back to his desk.

Alfred eventually came in, an amused look on his face, “Legos?”

“I told you they’d come in handy.” Dick beamed at him.

Alfred hummed, “He’s taken over the living room.”

Dick winced, “Sorry, Al. I’ll make him clean it all up later, but for now at least he’s busy.”

The man smiled at him, “Busy indeed. He doesn’t want you to stumble on it, so I’ve been tasked with ensuring you’re hydrated and fed.”

Dick sent him off with a request for coffee and maybe a picture of Damian’s progress if the man could manage it, if not he’d settle for the finished product when it happened.

He moved on from physical documents to tackle his emails in peace. Dick didn’t want to look at the number of unread listed at the top. It was high enough thank you, and if he didn’t get to clearing some out they’d be in a numbers competition with his inheritance.

It wasn’t until Dick had worked his way through those, fought Damian for the right to leave the room so he could use the restroom, and actually managed to finish his to-do list for the day that he wondered at his little brother’s complete silence. Beyond a sheet thrown over the project Dick had no idea what Damian was working on, but it had been hours. Somehow the day had slipped away without another interruption from his youngest brother, and it kind of worried Dick.

He’d never had much of an attention span for Legos if someone wasn’t working with him. He’d spend an hour, maybe two, playing with them before heading outside or off to find other entertainment. Dick knew Damian took after Bruce, but this focus was like running into a miniature version of the man.

They coerced Damian into joining them for dinner by threatening to take the blocks away if he didn’t take a short break. He was distracted the entire time, turning to check his sheet covered structure every few seconds before turning back to his food.

Dick had to admit he was a bit distracted as well, only answering Alfred’s questions about his day with half as much interest as he usually would. His shoulders were sore. His shoulders and back and his fingers. How were fingers sore?

He turned to Damian as the child stabbed at a pea with his fork, “Hey, Damian. What do you think about taking the night off?” his mind was churning with the need for a long hot bath with some muscle relaxing salts. The kind he’d take after a hard case. Bruce’s paperwork equated a hard case right?

The resistance he was expecting didn’t come, Damian’s face almost lit up, but the wide eyes and smile that Dick’s suggestion created were schooled into a bored expression before they’d really had time to form.

“Already exhausted from trying to fill Father’s shoes. I should have expected as much.” Damian said.

Dick bit back a response that he was not and they were going to patrol after all. One night off for no reason but to rest wouldn’t kill them, and he wasn’t going to let Damian bait them into doing something neither wanted to do that evening.

“I think it’s a wonderful idea. You two never take time off for yourselves.” Alfred stepped in, “Master Damian, I seem to remember you expressing a desire to finish your project before the end of the day, this will give you an ample opportunity to do that. As for myself, I could use a night not worrying about boys coming home battered and bloodied.”

Dick chugged down his water at Alfred’s gaze, feeling it settle into a guilty pool in his stomach. “A night off it is.” he said.

Dick’s bath was wonderful. Soothing, warm, and perfectly undisturbed. Alfred left almost as soon as dinner was over, taking his night for himself literally, but promising to be back at a reasonable hour. He’d winked saying that and Dick had wondered if he meant Bat reasonable or generally reasonable. 

When he got out, he found the war zone that was Damian’s project empty and clean. For a moment Dick had wondered if his brother had given up and put everything away, but the sound of the elevator and a hurried tween was enough to tell Dick that wasn't’ the case. 

He reached out and caught Damian by his collar, stopping his rush towards the kitchen with a, “Hold up.”

Damian shook off his grip, but didn’t run off. “What?” he asked, impatient.

“Where’d your lego land go?”

“I have shifted it, for privacy.” Damian told him, “And Pennyworth was giving me warning looks about the mess. I’ve set up a private area in the bunker, and I would appreciate your not entering it until I’ve finished.”

He’d moved it downstairs. While Dick was in the bath he’d heard little, but he was two rooms removed from the boy, and that was apparently two rooms far enough for Damian to have shifted the entire structure down into the bunker. Dick was starting to wonder just what he’d started with this ‘little project’. In his desire to give Damian something to do, had he created something more worrying than a bored Damian?

"Sure, Lil D, but could you give me a hint at what you’re doing? You’ve been working on it an awful long time.”

Damian shook his head, “You will find out eventually, Grayson. Now if I am to stay on schedule I must be going.”

Dick watched as Damian grabbed a some thin wire; a pair of oven mitts; and one of the kitchen rags, bright blue (and Dick’s favorite), from the kitchen and all but ran back downstairs. He considered following his brother, but decided that Damian couldn’t possibly get into that much trouble building with Legos and settled onto the couch ready to enjoy whatever mindless television he wanted. No Alfred or Damian preferences required.

Dick didn’t see Damian again that evening. Nor did he see him the next day, except to scarf down a few sandwiches at lunch, then be gone again. Alfred stopped trying to prompt Dick to go downstairs and check on him after the fifth prompting. He had too much to do to figure out what Damian was cooking up. Besides, nothing was on fire or broken or exploded, making this project a success.

An emergency call from WE and impromptu meeting with investors wiped Damian and his project from Dick’s mind for a few hours. Once at the building he was pulled this way and that to work on various projects, fix disputes, and once rescue a kitten from an air vent.

When Dick managed to escape, and find his way back to the penthouse he went straight for the office to keep working. The bad thing about not having an interrupting pre-teen was that there was no one to pull Dick away from work. He could decide to take a break, but he had a responsibility to keep things running.

He’d only really sat down and started up his laptop again when his door opened, Damian’s head popping in. The kid looked like he hadn’t slept the night before, bags under his eyes, dark skin not quite as richly colored as usual, and his green eyes slightly rimmed with red. His hair was messy in the way only a hand running through it a hundred times could do.

“Grayson, I beat legos. Take me out for ice cream?”

Dick looked up at him, mouth slightly open as he processed Damian’s words. What on Earth did Damian mean by claiming he’d beat legos? You didn’t beat legos, legos were not a thing to be beat.

But this was Damian. Damian who turned everything into a thing to defeat, a mountain to climb and conquer. Damian who’d punished himself last week for not getting full marks on his history essay, graded by Alfred. Damian who’d refuse to go out for ice cream if Dick didn’t seem completely impressed with his creation.

“You beat legos?” he asked, at last. 

“I said that already, I was promised your iced milk dessert if I did.” Damian shifted, raising from where he’d been peering to stand inside the door, hands on his hips.

“How do you  _ beat  _ Legos?” 

Damian huffed as if Dick had just asked him why the moon hung in the sky and he stomped into the room. He moved swiftly behind Dick and pulled his chair away from the desk with a small oof before grabbing both of his hands to drag Dick up. 

“If you do not believe me I will prove it. Come along, I will not be denied my reward.”

Dick allowed himself to be dragged, dumbfounded, down to the bunker. Legos were supposed to have been a fun exercise. Fun hidden within the lie that it was ‘training’. Dick hated that he had to lie to Damian to get him to have fun. Hated that the kid thought of fun as ‘useless and weak’. A cold pit was eating away at his stomach that this had turned into something that only reinforced Damian’s drive to perfection. 

The elevator opened and Dick gasped. He hadn’t been down to the bunker since he’d come up from patrol the night before last. In the time Damian had been working with the legos he’d managed to build Gotham. Not the words Gotham or something that resembled the city, but to Dick’s eyes he’d literally created Gotham City. 

Damian pulled him from the elevator and released Dick’s hands to stand stiffly beside him. Dick wasn’t sure how to react. It was not what he’d expected, and somehow so much more? The kid had done something incredible. 

“Damian, how long did this take you?” 

“Twenty three hours and seventeen minutes.” Damian answered sharply, “It would have been faster, but I had to acquire a number of pieces you were missing from your collection.” This was added with a quick, almost curious look up at Dick, assessing weather or not it was right to have taken time for the extra pieces. 

“Did you use them all?” Dick took a brief look around him searching for the tubs. They were stacked haphazardly off to the side, out of direct view if one was looking over the build. 

Damian shifted from one foot to the other, “Most. I could not find an appropriate use for the pineapple themed building you had, and there was a particularly stubborn set of thin blocks I could not separate from one another.” 

Dick stepped towards the small city, his legs finding their ability to work once more. He moved around Damian’s creation in a slow circle, in awe of what his brother had accomplished in a day. Damian had managed all the main buildings, and smaller one’s Dick recognized easily. 

There was the arcade Dick had disastrously tried taking Damian to once, designed in perfect detail, down to the window Damian had shattered tackling a would-be-bully through. Game stores, Alfred’s favorite grocer, little shops Dick had windowshopped in as a kid. The ice cream parlor Dick was certainly taking his brother to the moment he’d processed all this. A few scattered parks, the one with the most detail being Damian’s favorite. There was even a tiny easel set up on the lego lawn, hinting that it was time for another trip. 

“Dames, this is...” 

“Terrible, I know.” Damian’s voice was tight. 

Dick spun on him, finding his brother still stiff, hands curled into tight balls at his sides. There was the slightest of red coloring his cheeks, and Dick was sure the rimming in his brother’s eyes was more pronounced. 

“What would make you think of that?” Dick asked. 

“It is not perfect.” Damian said, each word careful and clipped, “I could not find correct approximations of us, and I am certain I missed a few key landmarks.” 

“I think you built all the best landmarks.” Dick said, moving to the arcade, “This one in particular you did a good job on, how did you manage a shattered window?” 

Damian moved to stand next to him, “I framed a piece of broken glass within the legos.” 

The thought of Damian handing small broken glass worried Dick about as long as it took him to remember the oven mitts. This the only thing Dick could imagine Damian doing with them. Unless he’d used them for padding something? But he didn’t see traces of oven mitt scattered across the creation. His favorite blue rag had been used to emulate Gotham’s harbor, cut and folded into small lapping waves that must be reinforced with the wire.

“And what did you find to be us?” Dick asked. 

Damian pointed at the version of Wayne Tower, two small lego figures looked out at them through a window in the penthouse. Both had dark hair and the traditional yellow faces. The taller one was smiling, while the shorter one had a frown. It looked like Damian had pulled it’s legs off to get make it the proper height, making him grin. The one that was supposed to be Dick also had a shred of the blue rag draped over it, like a cape. 

“I think they’re perfect.” 

“They are  _ yellow _ .” Damian responded, but with less frustration than before. 

“All lego figures are yellow.” Dick straightened and turned to Damian, “All of this is stunning, worthy of a double scoop cone.” 

The tense set to Damian’s posture had relaxed as Dick had made him describe things. Now he gave Dick a small, proud smile, “It is perfect for what I had to work with. If we wish to make an exact, to scale replica we will need more pieces.” 

He pulled Dick towards a workbench, “I have planned out the rest of it here.” he said, his tone excited, rising as he pointed down at the diagram, “Downtown is only partially finished, and I have yet to begin on the manor.”

Dick hadn’t even thought about the manor, being so caught up with the whole city. His eyes roved to where it should be. A blank space, cut into a series of lego trees sat lonely and in need of filling. 

“I had hoped to have your assistance with the manor. I was not there long enough to have a solid memory of it’s details.” Damian’s request was careful, each word even. 

“Of course.” Dick said, reaching out to pull Damian into a side hug, “I’d love to help you finish this. What do you say to picking up some more pieces on the way back from ice cream?” 

His brother nodded, “That sounds like an excellent idea. There is a Lego store close to where we usually get ice cream.” 

Dick grinned at him, “Good. We’re going to need a lot more pieces. Especially if we add a few extra things.” 

“Like?” Damian asked. 

“A Batplane flying overhead.” Dick told him, flinging his free hand out, and over the city, “and maybe a batboat in the harbor. Then a Bat-Zeppelin, Bat-Train, Bat-Kayak, and Bat-Dune Buggy! Oh! And a bat spaceship hanging above all that.” 

Damian grinned at him, “It sounds like you wish to prepare Gotham for an invasion.” 

“Only one of the most serious kind.” Dick said, turning Damian towards the elevator, his arm still around his brother’s shoulders. 

“And what is that?” Damian asked as they stepped into the elevator. 

“Godzilla.” Dick said, pressing the button to ascend.  


End file.
